Trouble Hooking Up Trailer due to "Gear Slack"????

I sometimes experience the "lurch" if I don't set my parking brake firmly... One way to avoid it and prevent the parking pawl from being placed in a bind is to:

1. Set the parking brake before shifting out of gear.
2. Shift to neutral and pause momentarily, release foot brake momentarily, then reapply
3. Shift to park - voilà no movement!

Sometimes the movement comes from the driveshaft being torqued from the engine/trans - this releases that torque.